As you know I’ve been starting to plan my wedding and in the process I’ve become obsessed with two amazing wedding sites: WeddingWire.com and TheKnot.com. I’ll be honest, I may have already registered for accounts with both of these websites before I got engaged, but it was merely for research purposes, I swear! I did wait until after the proposal to go out and buy any wedding magazines, that’s something right? Like an hour after the proposal. Whatever, I couldn’t help myself! I just want to say yes to the dress, is that so wrong?!

Okay, moving on, so the other day I was on The Knot’s site and stumbled upon an article called Wedding Problems: 10 Questions from Wedding Guests You Don’t Need to Answer. Sure, technically I don’t need to give these people an answer for their inappropriate questions, but if someone does ask me one of these questions I am sure as hell not gonna keep my mouth shut. If you are rude enough to ask the question, then you better be prepared for my answer. So, for a bit of fun I thought I would go through the list of questions and provide answers for all them. Brace yourself, I wrote this while feeling particularly sassy, stressed out over wedding planning, and a bit tipsy from some cheap wine. But, since this is first and foremost a personal finance blog, I thought I would also include some frugal answers with money saving tips to help any of you ladies (or gents) out there too:

Question #1 - How much is the wedding reception costing you?

Sassy Answer: None of your f***ing business.

Frugal Answer: Our budget is set at $10,000 because this is what we can afford on our salaries. We think this is still a fairly cheap wedding considering most wedding’s average about $25,000.

Question #2 - Can you make sure not to set your date for [insert date here] — I have a vacation already planned!

Sassy Answer: Oh sure, no problem. Me and my fiance will both just rearrange our whole wedding so it’s more convenient for you. Go f*** yourself. And yes, you are now officially dis-invited to our wedding. Have a fun vacation.

Frugal Answer: Unfortunately, we aren’t able to change our date. We’ve booked our wedding to be held on a Sunday (or Friday) instead of a Saturday because it can save us literally thousands of dollars.

Frugal Answer: We are actually thinking of just holding a cocktail reception with drinks and appetizers instead of a full dinner to save on costs, so there won’t be any assigned seating.

Question #4 - Why didn’t you invite [insert name here]?

Sassy Answer: Because I don’t f***ing like them! Wait, who? Yeah, I definitely don’t like them.

Frugal Answer: To save money, we had to cut some people from our original guest list and eliminate plus ones. We will only be inviting close family and friends so we can stay on budget.

Question #5 - Is this really a “white wedding”?

Sassy Answer: Did you just call me a whore?

Frugal Answer: You can actually save a lot of money by not wearing a white wedding dress and opting for a less traditional formal dress. That’s what you were asking, right?

Question #6 - How many carats is that ring anyway?

Sassy Answer: More than yours.

Frugal Answer: Me and my fiance discussed a budget for my engagement ring before he went out and bought it, so he bought a ring based on what he could afford, not based on how many carats it was. The old saying that an engagement ring should cost your fiance at least 3 months salary is unrealistic. Buy what you can afford, it’s the sentiment behind the ring that really matters.

Question #7 - Who’s your favorite bridesmaid?

Sassy Answer: I don’t know…the one who doesn’t ask dumb questions.

Frugal Answer: They are all my favourites, including my bridesman, because they are going to help me plan and coordinate my wedding. Their help will save me from hiring a wedding planner and shelling out hundreds if not thousands of dollars.

Question #8 - Did you get that idea from my wedding?

Sassy Answer: Believe me, if I stole that idea from your wedding it would be a hell of a lot tackier.

Frugal Answer: I got a lot of ideas from a lot of different sources (god bless you Pinterest!), so I could DIY a lot of things myself instead of buying everything new. DIYing decor and wedding favours will help me stretch my budget big time. If I got some inspiration from your wedding, hey, thanks a bunch!

Question #9 - Are you paying for any of this?

Sassy Answer: Have you even read my blog before?

Frugal Answer: Yes we are, but we’ve created a wedding budget we can both afford, so we can avoid the dreaded and common post-wedding debt. We just don’t see the point in spending the same amount on a wedding as on a down-payment for our first place.

Sassy Answer: Don’t you think your face is a bit much? No cake for you!

Frugal Answer: I sure do, and that’s why the first tier is going to be real cake but the other five are fake. Another way to save money on the wedding cake is to use cupcakes as the bottom tiers.

Fine, I’d probably never say any of those sassy answers to anyone (to their face anyways) but it sure did feel good to rant a bit. All of my frugal answers came from all the wedding planning research I’ve done so far, and I’m definitely considering most of them (except I gotta wear a white wedding dress, I just gotta).

You’ve probably already seen this KONY 2012 video as it’s been viral for a few days now and it’s been stirring up quite a bit of controversy ever since. When I first watched it, I was completely enamored, completely shocked, and completely sucked in. I mean, how could I not be? Not to mention I’ve got a soft spot for anything Africa related as I did a two month volunteer trip to The Gambia when I was 18, but I’ll leave that story for another time.

After I first watched the video, I felt like getting up and doing something. I was pumped! This KONY guy needs to be stopped and it’s crazy that he’s been running rampant for almost two decades! What is this world coming to? But a few days later, the video really hit it big on the news, Facebook, and Twitter, and that’s when my enthusiasm for the campaign started to wane. Instead of people getting on board, everyone seemed extremely skeptical. At first I was sort of taken aback, until I realized these skeptics had some pretty valid concerns which should definitely be addressed before hopping on board the kill Kony bandwagon.

For instance, is Invisible Children, the non-profit behind this campaign, legit? There are reports out there saying they only give 33% of the donations they raise to the cause and the rest goes to staff salaries and video production, and they raised over $8 million dollars last year. Then again, I’ve also read that non-profits are only allowed to give a certain percentage to their cause and any profits made after that must be put back into the organization in the form of marketing, staffing and so forth. Other reports are saying that Kony and his rebel group are no longer in Uganda, but have been pushed into Congo and aren’t much of a threat anymore. This is a hard pill to swallow with all of the imagery shown of Kony stealing kids from their beds and forcing them to kill their own parents, but what if it’s true? What if Kony doesn’t have as much power now as he once did? Should he still be #1 on the evil warlord kill list?

I don’t know. All I know is I still believe giving back is important, and so is donating money to charities. That being said, you work hard for your money, so make sure to do as much research as possible before giving your money away. That’s why I will never donate money to World Vision, because I know my $100 will most likely go into their huge advertising budget instead of to someone who really needs it. That also goes for giving up your time to volunteer. In the video it states that on April 20 there will be an event called Cover the Night in which people will gather together and plaster KONY 2012 posters and stickers all over their respective cities as another push to make Kony famous. As exciting as that seems to take part in, as a friend recently remarked to me, this is still vandalism.

I’m not sure if I’ll be donating my money to Invisible Children without doing some more research first, but I do like that this video has sparked some much needed conversation and has at least inspired me to start looking into some other causes I want to start supporting this year.

I’m 25 and that may seem young to some of you, but all I can think about is how I’m 5 years away from 30 and I need to seriously get my sh** together! When I was growing up I always had it in my mind that 30 was the age where I’d have everything figured out: I’d be in a serious relationship or married, I’d own my first condo, I’d have a great paying job, and I’d have a bunch of money in the bank.

Well, I’m engaged, so that’s a check, but I definitely don’t see me owning my own place, especially in Vancouver, for at least another 10 to 20 years. As for the job, well I’m only 2 years out of school so I’m still at the start of my career, and I definitely don’t have a bunch of money in the bank. I’ve got some, but not a bunch.

Now, I’ve talked a bit about budgeting in my post It’s Budget Makin’ Time about getting your finances in order for the new year, so I want to go in a bit of a different direction for this post.

I love the budget I created for myself. I did my research, I’ve tested it out for more than a year and I’ve rarely wavered from it. That being said, as perfect as I think it is, I don’t think budgets are one size fits all. I know this because a while ago I had a friend who asked me to help him create a budget for himself so he could pay off his student loan quicker. It was a challenge because he also had credit card debt and a modest income, but we wrote down all of his expenses, crunched some numbers and figured out a budget that I thought worked.

I’m not sure if I’ve ever stated this before, but I think of myself as a champion saver but an amateur investor. It’s maybe due to my lack of experience with investing money, but I just find the whole thing really intimidating. That’s not to say that I don’t realize the importance of investing because I do. As I mentioned in my New Year’s Resolutions post, one of my goals this year is to find a financial advisor (I’ve never had one before) and to explore ways to better invest my money. Right now all I’ve got is some cash sitting in a TFSA making 2% interest, another High Interest Savings account making 1.2% interest and and RRSP Mutual Fund which has lost me about $300 since I opened it last January. Damn you recession!

It’s Day 2 of Women’s Money Week and the topic today is relationships and money. So as you know my BF and I moved into together this past September. We’d been together for 4 1/2 years at that point and moving in together was a really big step for us. I think I’ve mentioned before that I come from a Catholic background, so shacking up with your boyfriend is a definite no-no in my family. At the start of our relationship I really wanted to keep that promise and wait to move in together until after we were married. Then again, I definitely wasn’t in a hurry to get hitched either. My parents had gotten married very young and very quickly, and although they are about to celebrate 30 years together this summer, I knew I wanted to date someone for at least 5 years before walking down the aisle.

Happy Women’s Money Week! I was so thrilled to have gotten an email a little while ago from the ladies at Women’s Money Week asking me to participate in this great cause. I mean, come on! A whole week blogging about women and money? That’s what I do! Plus, I was just super excited that they somehow found my blog on the interwebs. Thanks for finding me!

Coinciding with International Women’s Day, Women’s Money Week “is about raising awareness for important money-related issues impacting women.” So, for 7 days personal finance bloggers are given a new topic to write about everyday. I don’t post on weekends because that is my sacred time for sleeping in, overeating, drinking too much and so forth so I’ll only be blogging for 5 days.

Today’s topic is entrepreneurship and making money, so let’s start shall we?

As soon as I changed my relationship status from “in a relationship” to “engaged” on Facebook, within seconds all of the ads on my sidebar changed from shoes and make-up to wedding photographers and weight-loss. I mean, I expected that to happen but god Facebook can be super creepy sometimes! Anywho, I’m pretty good at ignoring all of Facebook’s ads, but I couldn’t help but feel compelled to click on the ad for Weddingful. With the tagline “Save 50% - 70% off of your wedding” how could I resist? That being said, since I am a true skeptic of all things that sound too good to be true, I thought I’d do a bit of research on this apparent fairy godmother of wedding deals and here’s what I found:

About this Blog

Hi there! This is a blog about all things money, written especially for the savvy, sassy, independent lady of today (like you!). Be it creating a budget, starting an RRSP, to talking money with your partner, or planning a cheap but stylish wedding, I'll be blogging about it all.